<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Lane Regional Air Protection Agency',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'Written in <span title="Introduction to Environmental Science">ENVS 1301</span> by <a href="https://y.st./">Alex Yst</a>, finalised on 2018-05-23',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2018',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<p>
	The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency is the pollution control authority that deals with air quality in my area.
	I was exited to learn that their office is in my town, within biking distance!
	I tried to pay them a visit though, and they keep their doors locked even during business areas.
	On such short notice as we had this week, given the other things I needed to get done as well both in and out of school, I was completely unable to contact them.
	It&apos;d be nice if their website listed an email address at which to contact them, but it doesn&apos;t.
	Aside from their physical address, only a telephone number and fax number are listed.
	I neither have telephone service not fax service, so these were not viable mediums for me to contact them through.
	Still, their website was a bit insightful.
</p>
<h2>Main air pollutants</h2>
<p>
	The only air contaminates listed on the website are ozone, particulate mater, and pollen (Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, n.d.).
	Pollen may be a contaminant, but it&apos;s not a form of pollution.
	This leaves ozone and particulate matter as the main forms of air pollution here, as those are the forms of pollution that the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency is worried about.
	My area appears to be doing quite well on those two fronts though, as are the surrounding areas.
	As we can tell by a graph on another section of the site (Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, n.d.), my area is doing slightly worse than the surrounding areas though, except in terms of spikes.
	In the past week, there have been three spikes in the contaminate levels in the region.
	While two local areas have been affected by two spikes each, my area has only been affected by one of them, and was affected by that spike less than other areas affected by that same spike.
</p>
<p>
	I was surprised not to find carbon pollution among the air quality concerns of the area.
	I thought motor vehicles would be one of the major problem areas.
	I also noticed cyanide and other contaminates from cigarettes weren&apos;t mentioned.
	Again, I thought cigarettes were one of the major issues here, especially considering how much emphasis my area puts on their use.
</p>
<h2>Causes of pollution</h2>
<p>
	Unfortunately, the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency&apos;s website doesn&apos;t mention the potential cases for the problem; it only states the hard facts about how much pollution is present.
	However, we can easily speculate.
	Ozone, for example, is widely known to be released by factories.
	When low to the ground (as in, not within the global ozone layer), ozone actually goes by another, more widely-known name: smog.
	Factories in the area are likely responsible for our levels of ozone pollution.
</p>
<p>
	Particulate matter is another thing with a widely-known source: fires.
	Smoke is itself a cloud of particulate matter that hasn&apos;t dispersed much yet; the particles are actually close enough together that we&apos;re able to visually perceive the presence of something, even if we can&apos;t make out the individual particles themselves.
	Once dispersed, the particle cloud is no longer visible, but the particles are still very much in the air.
	In recent years, my area has been having issues with fires.
	With climate change messing with the temperatures here, the air is too hot in the summer and things dry out.
	Between the high heat and the high presence of dry, burnable matter, fires are inevitable.
	Sometimes it&apos;s a wildfire in a local forest.
	Other times, we have a fire here in the city.
	An apartment complex on the next block over from me actually burnt out last year; it was scary seeing just how close to home the fires are.
	Hopefully my complex won&apos;t suffer a similar fate, but it very well could.
</p>
<h2>Improving air quality</h2>
<p>
	Given time and resources, we could find a way to improve the air quality in the area.
	Stopping contamination via particles is only really going to happen if we can stop these fires.
	The only way I can see the fires ending is if we can return our climate to something closer to what it was in the past, before the fires started.
	Restoring the climate would require a global effort.
	Just in this area though (again, given the resources), we could work on less expensive ways to build electric vehicles.
	Many people prefer gasoline-powered vehicles because electric vehicles are prohibitively expensive.
	If we can break down that barrier, people should switch due to lower fuel costs; electricity here is cheaper than gasoline.
	Because our area runs on hydroelectric dams and not coal-powered electrical plants, this would greatly reduce our carbon emissions, aiding in the greenhouse gas problem.
	Branching our beyond our community, we could work on getting other areas converted to using green power as well.
	Helping the world go green would help the local area rid itself of the particulate matter in the air.
</p>
<p>
	As for ozone, we could work on regulations to penalise companies for releasing ozone into the air.
	Companies tend to be greedy and profit-driven; they don&apos;t care about the environment.
	We need to hit them where it hurts: their pocketbooks.
	With regulations that cause concern for profit to necessarily include concern for the environment, we can practically <strong>*force*</strong> them to clean up their act.
</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>
	It&apos;s a shame when companies and agencies, especially government agencies, make themselves unavailable to contact besides via telephone and fax.
	Not everyone has telephone and fax service, nor does everyone want it.
</p>
<p>
	I was surprised to learn which pollutants my local air quality agency is worried about.
	In retrospect though, I should have at least suspected particulate matter.
	I&apos;ve been aware of our fire problem for years, but particulate matter isn&apos;t something I typically think of when I think of pollution.
	When I think of pollution, I tend to think not about the size and shape of something that shouldn&apos;t be there (such as particles), but about the chemical composition (such as ozone) of something that shouldn&apos;t be there.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		Lane Regional Air Protection Agency. (n.d.). AQI for Last 45 Days | Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, OR. Retrieved from <a href="http://lrapa.org/217/AQI-for-Last-45-Days"><code>http://lrapa.org/217/AQI-for-Last-45-Days</code></a>
	</p>
	<p>
		Lane Regional Air Protection Agency. (n.d.). Data Graphing | Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, OR. Retrieved from <a href="http://lrapa.org/221/Data-Graphing"><code>http://lrapa.org/221/Data-Graphing</code></a>
	</p>
</div>
END
);
